9/05/2013

Some evidence that Obama really doesn't want to win the vote on Syria

Obama's political arm, Organizing for America, formerly Obama for America, is so far sitting out the push on Syria. As anyone who subscribes to their emails knows, when the issue is guns or something else OFA deluges people with emails pushing issues. But nothing so far on Syria. Could it be that they don't really want to win the vote? From Politico:

OFA’s silence has been palpable. It didn’t send one of its ubiquitous emails to supporters and volunteers, nor did it signal to top donors how it might help press Obama’s case on Syria — or even whether it would participate in the president’s push at all.

It’s been a marked departure from how OFA handled Obama’s policy pushes on the environment, gun control, the economy and immigration, all of which came with cross-platform support. And it leaves dormant Obama’s single biggest lobbying army, the group formed with the express purpose of pressuring Congress to pass Obama’s agenda, at a time when House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has said it will be up to the president to whip votes in support of a Syrian attack. . . .

But senior aides say they expect, at most, between 50 and 60 Republicans to vote with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who support the president’s plan to bomb Syria to stop Bashar Assad from using chemical weapons on his people. That would amount to less than one-third of the House Republican Conference.

That would mean the vast majority of the 200 House Democrats will need to vote with Obama for the resolution to pass. But Democrats privately say that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) can only round up between 115 and 130 “yes” votes. . . .